Why a Church at all? Why not just a God who made the world?

01The objection

At full strength

Grant that a Creator is the best explanation of the universe. Why go further? A God who made the world need not speak, perform miracles, or found a church. Every religion adds claims, and they disagree. Why not stop at a maker and leave it there?

The Church agrees with the first step. In words taken from the First Vatican Council, it holds that God “can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason.”¹

The question is whether God stayed silent.

02Revelation

A God who speaks

There is another order of knowledge that we cannot reach by our own powers, the Catechism says: the order of divine Revelation. By a free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man.²

“God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, In these days, hath spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world.”

We need that light even for truths reason could reach, so that they can be known by all “with firm certainty and with no admixture of error.”¹⁰

And unlike a private feeling, the central claim can be examined.

03The test case

What the evidence consists of

“And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain: and your faith is also vain.”

The Catechism calls the Resurrection “a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified.”³ It points to three kinds of evidence.^3,4,5

You can weigh each of these for yourself. The Church does not ask you to skip the weighing.

The Church also points to signs such as miracles, prophecies, and the Church’s growth and holiness, which show that the assent of faith is “by no means a blind impulse of the mind.”¹⁴

Which leaves the other half of the objection: religions disagree.

04Many religions

If God spoke, why so many voices?

This is a fair point, not a dodge. Sincere people across the world hold sharply different beliefs about God, and it is reasonable to ask why that should not make us stop at a vague Creator.

The Church does not say the other religions are empty. The Second Vatican Council taught: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions.” Their teachings, it said, “often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.”¹⁵

The Catechism sees in them a search, “among shadows and images,” for the God who is unknown yet near, and regards the goodness and truth found in them as a preparation for the Gospel.¹⁶

It does not conclude that all religions are equally true: in the same passage, the Council says the Church must proclaim Christ, “the way, the truth, and the life.”¹⁵ Nor does it condemn those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ: if they seek God with a sincere heart and, moved by grace, follow their conscience, they too may achieve eternal salvation.¹⁷

So disagreement is not treated as proof that no one has heard anything. The question becomes where the light is seen most fully, and that brings us back to a historical claim about one man and an empty tomb.

If God did act in Jesus, the next question is where that witness went.

05Why a Church

From a message to a people

The apostles left bishops as their successors so that the full and living Gospel would always be preserved in the Church.¹⁸

That is a historical claim, and The Case pages on how old the Church is and who carries the apostles’ authority set out the evidence for it.

Paul ended his speech with a man raised from the dead. Some mocked. Others said, “We will hear thee again concerning this matter.”